S K E N È Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 2:1 2016 Catharsis, Ancient and Modern Edited by Gherardo Ugolini SKENÈ Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies Executive Editor Guido Avezzù. General Editors Guido Avezzù, Silvia Bigliazzi, Alessandro Serpieri. Editorial Board Simona Brunetti, Lisanna Calvi, Nicola Pasqualicchio, Gherardo Ugolini. Managing Editor Lisanna Calvi. Assistant Managing Editor Francesco Lupi. Copyeditors Marco Duranti, Flavia Palma, Carlo Vareschi, Tobia Zanon. Layout Editor Alex Zanutto. Advisory Board Anna Maria Belardinelli, Anton Bierl, Enoch Brater, Jean-Christophe Cavallin, Marco De Marinis, Tobias Döring, Pavel Drábek, Paul Edmondson, Keir Douglas Elam, Ewan Fernie, Patrick Finglass, Enrico Giaccherini, Mark Griffith, Stephen Halliwell, Robert Henke, Pierre Judet de la Combe, Russ McDonald, Guido Paduano, Franco Perrelli, Didier Plassard, Donna Shalev, Susanne Wofford. Copyright © 2016 SKENÈ All rights reserved. ISSN 2421-4353 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher. SKENÈ Theatre and Drama Studies http://www.skenejournal.it [email protected] Daniela M. Schönle* Theatrical Catharsis and Its Therapeutic Effect. Catharsis in Vienna at the Turn of the Century Abstract Around 1900, catharsis became “one of the most frequently discussed topics amongst scholars and an equally popular conversation topic at the Viennese salons” (Ellen- berger 1970: 2.655). The so-called ‘Viennese discourse on catharsis’ emerged as a re- action to Jacob Bernays’s commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics in which he interpreted the effects of tragedy as a medical procedure. Another important premise for the diffusion and popularization of the topic in the Danube metropolis was the activism of Theodor Gomperz, who not only spread the position of Jacob Bernays amongst phi- lologists, but also succeeded in stirring the enthusiasm of people working outside the Classics departments. In 1893, for instance, the Viennese physicians Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer presented a therapy that was supposed to cure hysteria. Influenced by Gomperz, and following Bernays’s assumptions, Freud and Breuer named their treatment “cathartic method”. Searching for novel means of expression and insight, and being particularly interested in the description of affective phenomena, the artists of the ‘Wiener Moderne’ also adopted catharsis as a theme and discussed Bernays’s interpretation and Breuer’s and Freud’s explanation of it in their writings. This article elucidates the foundations of the ‘Viennese discourse on catharsis’ and shows how contemporary playwrights reacted to the debate, using the works of Arthur Schnitzler and Hermann Bahr as examples. Theodor Gomperz and the Discourse on Catharsis in Vienna In der Hauptsache hat Bernays tausendmal recht, und seine These steht allen Anfechtungen gegenüber unerschüttert und unerschütterlich fest. Die griechische Formel, welche die Definition des Trauerspiels abschließt, be- sagt nicht ‘Reinigung der Leidenschaften’, sondern ‘von den Leidenschaften’ oder noch genauer ‘Ausscheidung der Affekte’; es ist eine dem Bereich der Heilkunst entlehnte, mit einem starken Erdgeschmack behaftete Metapher, welche die das Gemüt erleichternde Entladung der Affekte bezeichnen soll. (Gomperz 1905: 119) * Freie Universität Berlin – [email protected] © SKENÈ Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 2:1 (2016) 229-54 http://www.skenejournal.it 230 Daniela M. Schönle [Regarding the main issue, Bernays is a thousand times right, and his argu- ment faces all challenges firmly and unshakably. The Greek formula that concludes the definition of Tragedy does not describe a ‘purification of the passions’ but ‘from the passions’ or, even more accurately, the ‘expulsion of the passions’; it is a metaphor derived from the art of medicine that is accom- panied by a strong earthly taste and describes the kind of discharge of affects that offers relief to the mind.] This quotation is taken from Theodor Gomperz’s obituary on Jacob Bernays, who died in 1881. Gomperz, a well-known classicist who was teaching in Vienna at the time, emphasized in his necrology the medical aspects of Ber- nays’s understanding of catharsis that had caused a heated debate several years before. Turning away from poetic treatises of the eighteenth century, Bernays had liberated catharsis from its entirely moralistic interpretation, viewing it as a medical procedure instead. In his Outline of Aristotle’s Lost Treatise on the Effect of Tragedy (Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie, 1857) he described it as a physical process that can lead to the discharge of the affects by way of their direct excitation. Re- ferring to Aristotle’s Politics (cf. Bernays 1968: 10), he compared the medical form of catharsis with the effects of theatre.1 Bernays proved that Aristotle employs the concept of catharsis metaphorically. He also explained that the term was originally used to describe medical as well as religious purification processes, and that Aristotle was the first to transfer it into the realm of aesthetics (cf. ibid.: 6). Shortly after Bernays’s treatise on catharsis came out, Theodor Gomperz, whose philological works as well as his studies in the field of ancient phi- losophy had turned him into one of the most famous scholars of his time (cf. Gomperz 1865-66, 1883 1886, 1887, 1996), also began to study Aristotle’s Poetics. From the winter semester of 1877-78 onwards, he repeatedly made it the central topic of his lectures. Gomperz, who was known not only as a scholar but also as a liberal politician, began to publish several treatises on the Poetics which were followed by his own translation of the text in 1897. In his rendition Gomperz used Bernays as a basis to support his own translation of “catharsis” as “discharge” (“Entladung”, Gomperz 1897: 11) and interpreted the process (in the sense of the genitivus separativus) as a libera- tion from harmful affections. Thanks to his academic merits and his political 1 Bernays translates Aristotle’s essay on tragedy as follows: “[D]ie Tragödie bewirkt durch [Erregung von] Mitleid und Furcht die erleichternde Entladung solcher [mitleidigen und furchtsamen] Gemüthsaffectionen” (Bernays 1968: 21). [“Through the (excitation of) compassion and fear tragedy causes the relieving discharge of such (compassionate and fearful) affectations of the mind”]. Catharsis in Vienna at the Turn of the Century 231 prominence Gomperz was received gladly at Vienna’s salons. There he con- sorted with scholars and public servants as well as artists and thus contrib- uted to the exchange of ideas within the Danube metropolis. His examina- tion of the Poetics, including Bernays’s medical interpretation of the passage on tragedy, directed the attention of Vienna’s society to the question of the effects of tragedy. He became the founder of the “Wiener Katharsis-Diskurs”, the ‘Viennese discourse on catharsis’.2 The assumption that art and science were engaged in an increased “in- trospection” in turn-of-the-century Vienna has long been a topos amongst researchers on the subject. As a reaction to the often invoked “situation of crisis” that took place around 1900 (cf. Schorske 1982; Le Rider 1990) and during which the subject experienced the loss of its autonomy, and also as a general response to the rationalization of the world, art and science were looking for new ways of gaining insight (of the human mind). They found it in the exploration of the affects and their epiphenomena. According to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the Danube Metropolis became the “porta orientis . for that secret inner orient, the realm of the unconscious”.3 It is not sur- prising, therefore, that Vienna’s artists and intellectuals were intrigued by the phenomenon described by Gomperz and that they became exceedingly interested in the pleasurable experience of an affect-induced purification of the mind. It is no wonder indeed, that catharsis would become “one of the most frequently discussed topics amongst scholars and an equally popular conversation topic at the Viennese salons” (Ellenberger 1973: 2.665). This article elucidates the foundations of the ‘Viennese discourse on ca- tharsis’ and shows how the so-called ‘Viennese modernists’ reacted to the debate. Sigmund Freud’s and Josef Breuer’s ‘Cathartic Method’. In 1880 the psychiatrist Josef Breuer began treating the then twenty-one- year-old Bertha Pappenheim. Under the pseudonym of ‘Ms Anna O.’ her case would make history (cf. Borch-Jacobsen 1996; Reicheneder 1983; Gödde 2009). As is well known, Bertha Pappenheim needed medical attention after falling ill while taking care of her dying father, especially when her condition worsened after his death. She was suffering from all kinds of mental infirmi- ties (anxiety, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, etc.) as well as severe physical symptoms and was even confined to her bed by paralysis 2 The term was first introduced by Günther Gödde (2009: 88-91). 3 “[P]orta orientis . für jenen geheimnisvollen inneren Ort das Reich des Unbewussten” (qtd in Worbs 1983: 8). 232 Daniela M. Schönle and contraction of the limbs. Moreover, she was afflicted by a nervous cough as well as occasional dumbness and impaired vision. During her illness she lost the ability to communicate in her mother tongue and spoke and under- stood English only (cf. Breuer and Freud 1957: 21-5). Josef Breuer diagnosed her with hysteria, as it was common around 1900 (cf. Didi-Huberman 1997). With